The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones Review

Hi ForeverBookers,

I’ve just finished The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, but I really didn’t enjoy it :(. It started off promising but then it completely lost me. I’ll probably forget the story very quickly. I certainly didn’t find it thrilling, or scary as Stephen King claims it to be on the cover. 

1 Star!

The Only Good Indians is split into 3 parts. I honestly thought that the second part wasn’t needed. All it did for me, was introduce Denorah, the protagonist of the third part. So I won’t note anything from that section below, because I didn’t think it was necessary. In part 1, we follow Lewis, a man who’s just moved into a new house with his wife. There he finds a dead elk. What is up with this elk? Then in the third part we see just what or who the elk really is…I won’t spoil it here. (It’ll be in the spoiler section below).

First of all I didn’t like how the novel was based around Blackfeet Americans/Indians. That seemed to be the only thing the author was interested in writing about, which I suppose is great IF you’re a Native American, but I’m not so I just got annoyed by it. By the 3rd part, I was like ‘Yes, I know you’re a goddamn Indian. Please talk about something else!” The amount of times the word ‘Indians” was mentioned was just unnecessary. I came across the word at least six times, probably more. The end of part one was exciting as was the end of part three but those were the only parts I found thrilling, as King claims the whole novel to be.

The Only Good Indians is a very male led story with only, I think two main female characters, one that isn’t really significant to the plot. She’s just there. The author is male so it’s understandable that most of the characters are too but I just wish there had been a female hunter or two. 

There won’t be any quotes below, as I didn’t enjoy the book.

I read The Only Good Indians for a few readathons/reading challenges. They were:

Spookopoly - A spooky book - The Only Good Indians wasn’t spooky to me. I’d heard it was, which was why I chose it for this prompt but unfortunately it didn’t do it for me. 

Reading Rivalry - Thriller - Although, I didn’t find it thrilling, according to Stephen King it is and I can see how it could be to the right person.

The Always Fully Booked “Reading Rainbow Challenge - Black - the last book I read was white and this one is black! I thought that was kind of funny :L.

There’s fighting, blood and death of humans and animals in “The Only Good Indians,” so if any of that’s particularly triggering for you don’t read it.

Spoilers Below

Four friends, Lewis, Ricky, Gabe and Cass, young Blackfeet men, do something they will come to regret on the last day of the hunting season. What? You’ll have to read for yourself as it’s the crux of the plot to The Only Good Indians. 

Ten years later is when the main plot starts. It’s known as the Thanksgiving Classic. Lewis, our main character for the first third of the story begins to be haunted by that day 10 years prior. A friendship between a Crow woman and Lewis forms and he thinks perhaps she’ll understand what he’s going through. Of course, when in a horror or suspense novel do things ever go smoothly or how we expect…NEVER, so the plot ramps up from there until the end of part 1, anyway. 

Part 2 just completely lost me, as I said above. I can’t remember a thing about it. Part 1 was a little slow but the plot WAS there. Part 3 had me in the final chapters but apart from that, I hated this book, I’m sorry to say. I thought it would be a horror novel but it just wasn’t horrific to me. The only bit that was, was the transformation into the Elk Headed Woman. This was the only female character that had any purpose, and she just HAD to be evil, didn’t she? I don’t even know how that really came about either. First, she was Shaney, a friend of some of the characters, I think, anyway, and then she was this freakish thing, going after a young basketball player, I mean wtf, right? A crazy, totally rubbish plot! Safe to say, I won’t be reading this pile of drivel again - unless for a quick read for a readathon, if I need a quick, tacky read. The author is off my buy list too! Total waste of time!

It could have been a great, thrilling read but it just wasn’t. I WANTED it to be soooo scary, but it just didn’t capture me in that way. I thought Pennywise the clown was creepier, and that’s saying something as I didn’t find him particularly scary either. I will say that King has a better writing style than Graham Jones though, at least for me. When King went overboard with some details, Graham Jones didn’t write in detail at all. He just skirted the details and kept to the bare bones. I like over the top writing. If you like just the bare minimum this might be for you, but I don’t see the point in writing a novel then. If you’re not going to go all out on it, what’s the point? 

Stand by to see what I’m going to read next!